


It Was My Job To Protect You and I Failed- Prompt Fill

by captaincravatthecapricious



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dizziness, Insomnia, Jon's season 2 mindset, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Self-Destruction, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29522889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaincravatthecapricious/pseuds/captaincravatthecapricious
Summary: Jon and Martin are having trouble coping after the Prentiss attack.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	It Was My Job To Protect You and I Failed- Prompt Fill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celosiaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celosiaa/gifts).



> CWs: panic attacks, mental health issues, suicidal thoughts kind of? (Jon wishing that if someone is going to kill him that they would just get it over with), paranoia, insomnia, season 2 Jon and all his issues.

It's been too long since he slept.He knows this.His eyes are gritty and they hurt when he blinks.Vision starting to sway out of focus as Jon stares down at the statement on his desk.He doesn’t have the energy to lift the paper and hold it at a better angle for his poor eyes, so it strains them more. 

It’s fine.No one has been getting much sleep.He isn’t special.He isn’t different.Tim is just as tired, and has been avoiding him since he was caught spying. 

Jon keeps trying to convince himself that it was justified suspicion.He doesn’t want to be suspicious.God he wants to carve this paranoid out of him.This clawing, scratching, all-consuming fear that he isn’t safe, that someone he has known for years could have… tricked him.Gotten his guard down.How long was Gertrude’s murderer planning it? 

Why?

Did she know her killer?

It could have been anyone. 

It could have been anyone. 

His chest aches with the tension that has been clutching at him since… Gods he still hasn’t processed.Gertrude shot.In this office. 

It could have been anyone. 

He wants to trust Tim.And Martin.And Sasha. 

He misses them.God he misses them. 

He misses the calm certainty that his friends won’t slit his throat the moment he lets his guard down.Why the hell would he choose to be this way?Tim seems to think that he chose to be this suspicious.He didn’t. 

He didn’t. 

He would swear he didn’t. 

He wants to believe his friends.He wants to believe that he will be okay and safe and that nothing else terrible can happen to him ever again.He has had a lifetime of terrible things already.But everyone that loved him is dead or left or could murder him.If he… just… let himself sleep.He wants to sleep he wants a cup of tea.But he can’t trust the tea or the kindness or sleep. 

Every time he closes his eyes he feels the squirming on his skin, the burrowing into holes that are hardly healed over.He hears footsteps and singing and the creaking of floorboards, the sharp sounds of a knife the click of a gun being cocked. 

Every time he lays down, he jolts himself awake as soon as his heartrate starts to slow.The few times he passed out of exhaustion or pain he wakes up seconds later sweating bullets swallowing a scream as he is sure… positive that someone is waiting for him.Waiting to catch him unawares. 

So waits outside in the cold, injuries pulling with the dropping temperatures, joints stiff, shivering with cold and fear and sleep deprivation, watching the people he should trust, betraying their trust in him like the miserable excuse for a wretched man he is. 

He is drifting closer to his desk when there is a tentative voice at his door.No knocking.There hasn’t been knocking in months.Still his head snaps up.Hurting the neck that has already put up with enough shit keeping him upright without rest in months… since… since Her. 

“Jon?I made you some tea?”Everything Martin says sounds unsure now.A question.From fear?From fear of Jon?Fear for Jon?A trick to get Jon to relax? 

Jon grunts.Loud enough to be heard through his door.Nice and noncommittal.If Martin is planning to kill him it would be stupid to do during work hours if no one else is in on it.If the others are in on it, then it doesn’t matter, he is practically dead already.He does want the tea, but that would be an easy way to kill him, wouldn’t it? 

“Jon, I’m coming in.” 

Jon can see him shaking even through smearing vision.“Good lord!Martin are you alright?”He surprises himself with concern, and the lack of fear that this is a trick. 

“Fine.I’m fine.Here, take your tea, I’ll.. I’m going to go back to my desk and drink mine, yeah?I’m alright.” 

His hands are shaking enough that he is in danger of the tea splashing. 

Jon finds himself on his feet.Vision blacking out for a moment.Damn his exhaustion. 

Martin’s hands are warm, and that thought threatens to black out his vision again, simply out of… Jon doesn’t know.Shock? 

Is it gay to almost pass out when you brush the hand of your shaking coworker when you are sleep deprived and paranoid? 

Jon banishes the thought with a slight shake of his head, which nearly causes him to black out again.He carefully takes the mug from Martin’s hands.He smells bergamot.He doesn’t want to let go of Martin.The heat of hand touching hand sends a shudder through him.When was the last time he touched another person?Was it… in the tunnels being more or less carried?Was it that single night of camaraderie through trauma before the gnawing terror set in.Terror of his …friends?Not of the squirming ordeal that they just survived. 

His first wrong move had been there.Stopping to interrogate instead of resting.He shouldn’t have pushed.Surly even someone with the best intentions towards him must have wished death on him for that. 

He nudges Martin towards a chair.Mechanically he drapes his battered coat around Martin. 

It’s comically small on him, and worn to the point it probably isn’t doing anything against the damp chill of the basement.Colder still with the knowledge that the walls are thin and anything could lurk behind. 

Martin looks at him blankly.Jon thinks he might have run out of mental script.Jon… knows that feeling.This is hardly the sort of conversation you plan for or expect.Not something you can rehearse in the shower… or could before you became too afraid to speak in the shower for fear that the extra level of noise would lead to someone leaping out at you with a butcher’s knife and you wouldn’t even know it was coming… and honestly would that be so bad?At least it would be fast and he would at least know who it was and he could die trusting whoever wasn’t the person knifing him to death in the shower. 

Focus, Jonathan. 

“Are…. Are you alright?”Jon, fumbles for his own seat before his legs can give out.Pain and exhaustion.Probably not the best for if he needs to run from something…. But not much he can actually do about it if he can’t sleep ...not to mention his ruined leg. 

Martin, to Jon’s horror, sniffles.A choked half sob half laugh.“Me?Jon, you almost passed out three times just now.”

“You’re shaking.”Jon protests weakly. 

“Yeah, and so are you.” 

Jon looks at him.Studies him.Looks for some reason to be afraid.But he doesn’t have the energy.He slumps.Skin pulling at his many… many scabs.“When’s the last time you slept?” 

Another half sob.“Probably the last time you did.” 

Jon can’t remember the last time he slept.Probably not even before Prentiss, aside from one night with painkillers before he realized they just left him open to an attack.But he can’t rightly call that nauseous hazy not-sleep Sleep.Does Martin know just how long ago that was?Or is he assuming that Jon slept well before that?Or has Martin really just not slept in that long?Jon wishes he could remember… but he hardly payed Martin mind before then… except for criticizing him and you don’t tend to look that closely at people you are trying to dislike. 

“Do…. You want to talk about it?”Jon asks cautiously.Does he care?Is this a tactic to catch Martin in a lie, or his he concerned?Jon can’t even tell. 

Christ Martin looks soft.Warmer and safer than his hard and empty bed. 

Where did that thought come from???

“What?Just another way to interrogate me?Christ Jon I just want to have a breakdown in peace, and then go back to pretending this isn’t happening, alright?”Edged with tear, and the unfamiliar bitter bite of anger that he expects from Tim. 

It hurts.And Jon bites back a bitter remark, or a sob, or a scream.He doesn’t really know.“I… I’m worried about you?”

“Are you, or are you just worried about what I could do to you?”

It doesn’t sound like a threat?He doesn’t think.Just… sounds tired.As tired as Jon feels. 

“Christ… Martin… I.Do you think I want to be like this?I can’t FUCKING SLEEP.I haven’t slept I keep… thinking I hear someone in my flat.I keep thinking that I’m going to turn around and she will be there or that I’ll be nose to nose with a gun or… or a knife or I don’t know a flamethrower.I can’t close my eyes.I can’t eat anything that isn’t packaged.I … how do I know it hasn’t been tampered with?That I… shit.I just…. I am so tired and I just want it… to just do it already.Just get it over with so I can stop worrying and wondering and fuck I’d be dead but it’s better than waiting and worrying and waking up without even sleeping.“I should… I should have protected you… It was my fault you even saw Prentiss, I shouldn’t have pushed and I can’t stop pushing and I don’t want to be like this.I should have protected you.I can’t stop picking and prodding and I can’t even trust that the only people who don’t hate me aren’t just pretending.I failed you all and Christ it should have been me trapped by Her and it should have been Sasha who got this job but maybe it should be me so it doesn’t get her killed too….”He can’t raise his voice.It’s just a panicked whisper.Can’t even admit to himself these things.Can’t believe he’s said it to Martin, but it’s out of his mouth in a tangled jumble before he can even think.He’s shaking harder now.He can’t look at Martin.Doesn’t want to know what he is going to say. 

But Martin doesn’t get the chance to say anything because Tim barges in.Loudly.Unannounced.“JON I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU ARE TERRORSING MARTIN AGAIN I SWEAR!”

Tim is still talking but all he can hear is his heartbeat in his throat and a high pitched tone in his ears.The wheeze of his shitty lungs trying to pull in air but just tightening instead.Asthma, panic?It doesn’t matter, his vision is going dark again, and he catches a glimpse of Martin similarly shocked and wheezing (although since Martin doesn’t have asthma it’s probably just a panic attack). 

Tim’s holding his inhaler.Tim is telling him to use it.To take a breath and hold.And once he has, Tim is talking them both down.With gentle movements and calming words.And Jon doesn’t know what to think.Doesn’t know if he can trust this gentleness after weeks of tension.Months of tension. And that nearly sends him spiraling again before Tim has a hand on his chest and his hand on Tim’s chest and they are breathing together. 

There is deafening silence once everyone stops wheezing.“Okay what the hell was that about?” Tim demands after a long moment. 

“Heh, you know... Two coworkers having simultaneous breakdowns...” Martin adds weakly. 

“What?Five feet apart because you’re not not gay?”Tim scowls at Jon like he doesn’t believe what Martin said.Like Martin is covering for Jon or something.

“Tim,” Martin admonishes. 

Jon isn’t sure he can get words out. He’s still breathless and even an aborted panic attack took any energy he had in his empty reserves.

Jon finds his vision smearing with tears and exhaustion.He doesn’t have it in him to swipe at them.“If either of you are planning to kill me, please do it now.I have a pair of scissors.Just... get it over with.And if not, I’d rather like to lay down.”His voice sounds far away. 

Tim rounds in him properly. 

Jon doesn’t want to see it.If he’s going to die now he doesn’t want to see it. 

“Please. I’m.I’m so tired.”Eyes closed.Voice wobbling.He’s embarrassed, but he’s too exhausted to care. 

“Shit Jon.I don’t want to hurt you.But you did fuck me over.” 

Jon’s in a ball on his seat, he’s properly sobbing now.Silently. Arms over his head waiting for an attack. 

The longer he waits for one.The more he shakes. He can’t do this any longer. 

His scrawny, underfed arms are shaking with exertion.His breathing is... likely on a fast track to another panic attack. 

Someone gently grasps his quaking wrists.Holding them steady.He opens one bloodshot eye a crack. 

“Let’s.Let’s get out of here, alright?We... we should probably talk about.A lot of things.Take turns keeping watch, I think we all could use some sleep.” 

It’s Tim. Tim has his wrists. So gently. And Tim guides him up and towards Martin. Who is also shaking and red-eyed. 

Jon stumbles into him with a breathless sound and a frankly embarrassing whine.His legs won’t hold him up anymore, and he is ends up in Martin’s lap.And the two of them quietly shake together until Tim rounds up them and their stuff and herds them out of the Institute. 

Jon doesn’t remember getting to his flat, but Tim and Martin are there, and he would panic about that, but he thinks he let them in.He thinks he remembers a conversation.Where Martin is afraid to go home, and Tim doesn’t want Jon at his but wants to keep an eye on them both, and Jon can’t argue that he needs something, and he… he doesn’t know.Nothing has changed.But.Maybe he can trust… just for tonight.And maybe if he can do that.Maybe they can all talk in the morning.And maybe he can trust for a little longer.And maybe if he’s lucky, (and if Tim satisfies his vindictive nature by snooping around his flat in retaliation) maybe Tim and Martin can trust him again too. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I am captaincravatthecapricious on tumblr! I am still accepting bingo prompts! Although this sheet is getting full. Thinking about doing another, but no promises yet, still have a few more to go here! Just let me know which prompt and which character and if you want a drawing or a fic! Toss me a comment if you enjoyed, and have a lovely day!


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